Our 40th Birthday Campaign

It all started with a group of like-minded individuals who wanted to bring joy to children with critical illnesses by fulfilling their hopes and dreams. Four years after Make-A-Wish America was established in 1980, Patsy Warren, Brad Gardner, Steve Rank, and the Union City Police Officer Association teamed up to begin granting wishes in the Bay Area. The articles of incorporation for the then East Bay Make-A-Wish Foundation were signed on January 30, 1984. Just four days after the phones were installed, a call came in for a young boy named J.D., who was in need of a wish.

Volunteers from the newly founded chapter rolled up their sleeves, found $500, and helped wish kid J.D. visit the set of the hit TV show, Knight Rider. There, his wish to meet KITT, the talking 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, came true. He was even given a ride in the car by the show’s star, David Hasselhoff.

By the end of that first year, East Bay Make-A-Wish had granted wishes for 27 children, helped in part by community leaders hosting softball tournaments, wine tastings, 4th of July fundraisers, and chili cook offs. In the early years, the founders’ aimed to grant a wish a week—a goal they quickly achieved and then exceeded. In the first 10 years, our chapter granted more than 1,000 wishes. The next 20 years saw wish growth of 30 percent year over year on average.

Fast forward to 2024 and, with over 9,500 wishes granted and counting, Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area is celebrating 40 years of granting life-changing wishes to children with critical illnesses.

Today, while our mission stays the same—to grant the wish of every eligible child—our reach and needs have grown. We’ve become one of the leading chapters in the Make-A-Wish enterprise, granting over 9,500 wishes in our 40 years, and assisting other Make-A-Wish chapters in granting wishes for wish kids across the nation and around the world.

We’ve accomplished this by expanding the wonderful vision of our volunteer founders by building our professional staff of nearly 30 individuals, growing our volunteer corps to more than 800 people, and securing gifts from thousands of individual, organizational, and corporate donors who believe in the importance of our mission and the transformative impact of a wish.

As with so many organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected our ability to fulfill our mission. We were constrained in the number and types of wishes we were able to grant. Our referrals of medically eligible children declined, and those who were already in the wish discovery process were limited by the restrictions the pandemic put on all of us.

Since emerging from the pandemic, we face a new landscape. The volume of medically eligible wish children referred to our chapter has increased significantly. But donations have plateaued or declined in many areas, leaving us without the funds necessary to increase our wish granting. Our costs per wish are higher, due in part to several years of inflation.

For the first time since our chapter’s founding, we no longer have the ability to keep increasing our capacity to grant and assist with life-changing wishes. This is why we need your help.

As we head into our 40th year of wish granting, we want to continue building on our legacy of making the impossible possible for our wish kids—whether that’s a dream shopping spree, a new puppy, a visit to meet a celebrity, or a trip of a lifetime. We believe that our 40th Birthday offers us a chance to both celebrate all we as a community have accomplished, and an opportunity to make deliberate investments to ensure no eligible child is waiting for their wish to be granted.

Forty years ago, a handful of volunteers had the audacious idea to build an organization that asked the community to come together and make what seemed like a dream actually possible. They knew, as we know now, that there’s hope and joy created when a simple wish comes true, and the effect is truly life changing.

Birthdays are the time when candles are blown out and wishes are made. Won’t you help us by making an investment in in our mission so that we can celebrate another 40 years of changing lives?